Dissonance (6 page)

Madge knew this was a chance that couldn't be squandered. If Erwin was good, really good, then they could leave their worries behind. If he worked hard, and she made ­sacrifices, then they could work their way up into a whole new world. No more Jo. No more miserable Fritzes. No more struggling to pay bills, driving Dodge trucks or teaching the children of people who crushed grapes with their feet.

Erwin could amount to something. He wouldn't have to rely on inheriting the Hergert shop. He could have a home in North Adelaide (no, she needed to be more ambitious, London, Berlin) and she could live in it and run it for him – choosing new wallpaper, tiles, hiring and firing maids and cooks and planning Schubertiades that would be attended be the elite of local society.

Yes, a man could make something of himself if he worked hard. But work didn't come naturally to any man. She would have to be the one to make it happen. She would have to make him understand that there were no second prizes in this game, and that there were a thousand others wanting the same thing. She would have to be his teacher and his mentor, his cook and mother, his conscience, his guilt, his fear – she would have to be his everything, and he would have to understand that there could be no one else. He would have to follow her without question. He would have to be obedient. Love was secondary. That would follow later when he realised what she'd done for him.

But they weren't there yet. A Zac could become an Erwin and an Erwin could become a Zac. The only thing that separated them (apart from talent) was work. Hours and hours of work, every day, up to and including the day he was playing at the Royal Albert Hall, crowds lined up halfway across London for a ticket. Half of Australia had had piano lessons. So what? Her own mum had taught her for seven years. But not enough to be good, and certainly not the best. Lessons were one thing, but willpower was another. She could've been good too, if her mother had asked, indeed demanded, more from her. ‘Go play outside, dear, go feed the chooks.' That was the path to mediocrity. That was what she had to avoid. And she had to avoid people who would persuade her to make that compromise.

There were plenty of obstacles in front of them. Perhaps the biggest was money. The few pounds she got for teaching didn't go far. She'd tried selling some of Jo's old tools, and a few pieces of farm machinery: enough to keep them going for a few months. And now, as the cash was running out, she was eyeing off Jo's mother's jewellery, his books and prints and anything else that could be salvaged. Another year perhaps. And then what? The rest of their land, the house? She wasn't too proud to rent. Maybe they could move to Adelaide, to be closer to the Con, the concert halls and non-Fritz ­civilisation.

Something always came up. One thing was certain though, if Erwin was to be the best, they'd need to go elsewhere – America, England, Germany. The sooner the better. There was a whole world beyond her, O'Gorman and even Reg Carter. The history of music smelt of kransky and cabbage soup – gum trees didn't figure.

Madge looked at the timer. Ten more minutes. Zac picked something from his nose and wiped it on his jumper.

‘Zac,' she scolded.

‘Can I go home yet?'

‘No. Now concentrate. This phrase.' She pointed to the notes as she sang them. Half an hour later they were still there. ‘Where's your mother?' Madge asked.

‘Shopping.'

‘I have to pick up my son.'

Zac stared at her. He put a single finger on the keys and attempted ‘The Ash Grove'.

‘No,' she said, stopping him. ‘I have to go.'

A few minutes later she was sitting in the truck, revving the engine and tuning the radio to the Brahms'
Requiem
. She put her hand out of the window and attempted to extend the aerial but it was rusted in place. She looked across at Zac, sitting on the porch with his music across his knees, and said, ‘Don't move. Wait for your mother.'

‘When's she coming?'

‘You tell me.'

She let out her clutch and the truck reversed up the driveway. She turned onto God's Hill Road, changed gear and set off towards Nuriootpa. As she changed through the gears the clutch felt tight. No more pushing her foot to the floor.

God bless you, Mr Lindsay, she thought.

And she hadn't had to do a thing. There he was the previous morning, standing on her porch, pointing to her truck as it sparkled in the sun. ‘There you go, Madge, as promised.'

‘Mr Lindsay …'

‘Charlie.'

‘What can I say?'

He raised and dropped his hand, like he was swatting a fly. ‘No, listen, it'll only cost you a cup of tea.'

‘I insist on paying.'

‘No, I took care of it.'

She stared at him and smiled. He was dressed in freshly ironed pants, a white shirt that still had the pins in it, an old dinner jacket and work boots he'd taken the trouble to rinse clean. She could smell him – California poppy and sump oil.

‘I mustn't keep you,' she said. ‘You've got an engagement.'

‘No, I don't,' he replied.

She took a deep breath. ‘I'll put the kettle on then.'

‘Right you are.'

Over tea and carrot cake she asked, ‘Was it much of a job?'

‘Not much,' he replied. ‘It killed a few hours.'

Madge lifted her eyebrows. ‘I'd imagine you're very busy. How much land do you have?'

‘Enough, but there's more to life than crutching sheep, isn't there?'

Like the piano, he explained. Beethoven and Mozart. Or books. You've got a few there, Madge. Who's this one? Nietszche. What did he write about?

He was a philosopher.

Ah, you can keep that.

As Madge thought, perhaps … maybe if … no …

‘At least let me pay for the parts,' she insisted, catching a crumb as it dropped from her lips.

‘Na, you've got enough to pay for, Madge. I've had a few good years. Us Aussies, we gotta stick together, don't we?'

Madge wasn't sure what he meant. He noticed the crease on her brow and said, ‘It's the Fritz, Madge. They're not real Australians like you and me. I tell you what, I was in Wohler's the other day and bugger me, there's this picture of Hitler up on the wall. No mention of Curtin, or anyone.' He looked up at Madge's token portrait of the King, leaned forward and almost whispered, ‘We lot have gotta stick together, Madge.'

Luckily for Madge, just then the first of her students arrived. ‘You'll have to excuse me, Mr Lindsay.'

‘Charlie. Maybe I could pop back some time?'

She handed him a pad and pencil. ‘Write down your number. Soon, perhaps.'

Madge pulled up in front of Nuriootpa Station. Erwin was already waiting, reclining in the sun on a bench, his eyes closed. He could hear his mother but didn't move.

She sounded the horn a few times and shouted from the window, ‘You comin'?'

He looked up at her with a blank expression. Then he gathered his satchel and walked across the weedy gravel. ‘Hello,' he said, formally, as he climbed into the cabin.

‘Hello? Haven't you got a kiss for your mother?'

He leaned across and kissed her.

‘What's wrong?' she asked, sensing.

Erwin ignored her. ‘How much did the clutch cost?'

‘Plenty. Money I didn't have. Still …'

She executed a slow U-turn and came back onto the asphalt. They drove through a cold, sunny afternoon. Giant River Reds dropped steel girder roots into dry creeks – depressions that ran a few hundred yards before flattening out and merging with a landscape of red-brown soil, native grass and moss rocks, climbing hills that had eroded smooth, round and green, as though someone was pushing a stick up from under the earth. The vines were nearly bare – brown and rusted, pruned and trained. A flock of cockatoos passed overhead and Erwin wondered if they weren't some kind of sign. He'd heard it somewhere – it meant death, or good fortune – or maybe that was when you got shat on.

‘So, you had a good lesson?' Madge asked, letting the truck roll down a hill, fighting to take a sharp corner at the bottom.

‘You always do that,' Erwin said, holding his seat. ‘You could roll it, and we wouldn't be protected.'

She looked at him. ‘Someone's got the shits.'

‘Trucks have a high centre of gravity.'

She almost laughed. ‘What do you know about physics?'

He folded his arms and just stared at her without saying a word.

‘You told Mr Carter we'd pay him?' she asked.

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘It does.'

‘Y' oughta see the photo of his place.'

‘I don't care!'

She could handle having a local reputation as a stingy old misery guts who'd driven her husband away, but when it came to music, to the Elder Conservatorium, to a world of hard-working no-nonsense Protestants (all of whom knew someone who knew someone who could make your life difficult; whose kids all went to one of four schools; who had strings of letters after their names, summer homes in the Hills and grand pianos that had been played by Rachmaninov), she didn't want any sort of reputation.

They drove on silently. Erwin started to grind his teeth and Madge could hear it above the engine. ‘Stop it,' she said.

‘I can't help it.'

‘You can. Dentists cost money.'

‘So what? Everything costs money – money, money, money.'

‘Which we haven't got.'

‘Why?'

She looked at him sternly. ‘You know why.'

‘I could leave school and get a job.'

‘Over my dead body.'

‘It makes sense.'

‘And where would you be in five years' time?'

He didn't reply.

‘God's Hill Road,' she whispered. ‘The same little dump.'

‘It's not a dump. Dad worked hard – '

‘We could have a flat in London.'

‘I don't want a flat in London. I want …' He trailed off.

‘You're too young to know what you want,' Madge explained, slowing for an intersection.

‘I'm fifteen.'

‘A child. You have to trust me.'

‘Dad would've let me decide.'

She stopped, depressed the clutch and fought with the gears. ‘Exactly, that's why you're better off – '

‘Stop it.'

He looked at her and decided. He took a wad of letters, done up with a piece of twine, and dumped them onto the dashboard.

‘What are they?' Madge asked.

Erwin took a letter from the wad, opened it and started reading.

Dear Dad, It's been weekes and I miss you terrible …

He read until he got to the end of the letter.

Yours sincearlee, Declan Hergert.

Then he looked at her. ‘And you tell me to trust you.'

Madge bit her bottom lip. A car came up behind them and sounded its horn. She took a deep breath, found the gear and drove off. ‘Where did you get them?' she asked.

‘In the shed, in a box.'

‘I didn't know,' she replied.

‘You did.'

Silence. Galahs. A heavy thumping from the nearby cement works.

‘I was protecting you from it,' she tried. ‘Imagine what people would have said.'

‘Do you care?'

‘Of course.'

‘He could've been my brother. We could've …'

She pulled to the side of the road and braked hard. Then she turned to him and said, ‘It could've ruined everything, and it will … if you let it.'

He didn't respond.

‘Is that what you want?' she asked. ‘Everything I've done for you? You want to be a grocer? Go on then, but don't blame me, later, when you hate your life.'

He sat thinking. He looked at the letter in his hand, the satchel, the crumpled Chopin sticking out of a corner.

‘We'll go see him shall we, now?' she asked.

Another long, empty silence.

‘It'll all be down to you.'

She clenched her teeth.

‘Well?'

Erwin bowed his head.

‘See, you're just a child,' Madge repeated. She tried to take the letter and he resisted for a moment before he let it go. Then she took the whole pile and threw them out the window. They came undone and scattered everywhere, settling across the road, down an embankment and into a gully. He watched them blow across grass and over rocks, catching in the fork of trees and under piano-sized boulders.

Madge embraced him. She drew his head against her breast and ran a finger down his cheek, triggering a single cold tear that made it as far as his chin. ‘Trust me,' she said.

No reply.

‘You love me, don't you?'

‘Yes,' he managed.

‘Well … enough of this nonsense. We don't need to mention it again, do we?

Silence.

‘Do we?'

‘No.'

‘You will be the world's greatest musician.'

And then he kissed her arm, and shoulder, and neck.

‘I do it because I love you,' she said. ‘Everything's for you.'

Chapter Four

Madge liked soccer because Erwin didn't have to use his hands. The position of goalie for the Nuriootpa School's Under-15s had come up and Erwin had wanted it, but Madge was having none of that. She'd seen how hard they kicked the ball, and could imagine bent and twisted fingers.

Football had been suggested, but ruled out; batters' fingers had been smashed by cricket balls; hockey was the same as saying goodbye to your teeth – but if it came to something too passive, like table-tennis or archery, then what was the point of sport at all?

So there she was, on a cold Sunday morning at the Angaston Community Oval. She watched as the team, in blue and white, warmed up by jogging on the spot, bringing up phlegm and spitting and stretching against a wall with a sign proclaiming ‘Dawes and Penna, Suits in an Hour'. She knew her son was the star; he towered above the brown-haired butchers' sons, a little Ching-Chong and a Red Sea pedestrian called Goldman, or Goldstein. Of course, they'd made
him
the captain. It was obvious Erwin had been cheated. He was the one with the square shoulders, muscular trunk and Mr Atlas biceps. These things were never left to a popular vote. It was always whose dad was providing the sponsorship.

Madge watched as the boys from each team took up their positions. She opened a thermos of tomato soup and poured herself a cup. Erwin looked at her and she toasted him, blowing him a kiss and trying to look like she cared. The other parents had gathered further along the fence. They talked and laughed and patted each other on the back. Some of them spoke in German and she wanted to ask, ‘In which country have you chosen to live?'

They didn't bother about her. Most of them knew what she was like. She drove her husband to an early grave, they'd whisper between themselves, and she'll do the same with that boy, if he lets her. They'd tried to sit with her, and talk, but it had never got beyond how provincial the Valley was, how bad the schools were, how the Germans made no effort to get along (and she should know, she married one) and how she was planning to get her son to Europe, or America, to study with proper teachers.

The referee blew the whistle and the game began. Erwin had the ball almost straight away, moving it towards the goal, avoiding an Italian with socks up past his knees and a bangle that caught the morning sun.

‘Come on, Erwin,' his mother called, standing, spilling her tomato soup. ‘First goal!'

But a few moments later the opposition had him boxed in, with no one for him to pass to. Where was the Yid? Of course, chatting to someone on the boundary. ‘Eh, Captain,' she called, ‘where are your players?'

He couldn't hear her, but the other parents could, turning and looking at her and then whispering something among themselves.

‘He needs support,' Madge explained to them, not in the least bit embarrassed.

Erwin looked back and saw her motioning to the group. What now, he wondered.

Among the group of parents, Madge noticed a man who'd been a regular at their shop. He was tall, with a small nose and wire-framed glasses. She looked at his smugness, his unshaved face (because it was Sunday and he had no one to boss around). Jose, she remembered. Peter Jose. Although he'd spiced it up. Pieter, or Patar, or something crypto-Continental. Jose, what was that, French, Spanish, Portuguese? She remembered him coming into the shop and buying bread, fly spray and baked beans. She remembered him always asking for credit. Until one day she said, ‘Your tab's full. This is a small business, Mr Jose. We need cash to pay our suppliers.'

‘I'll fix you up tomorrow.'

‘I'm sorry.'

And then he turned and walked out of the shop, never to be seen again. Madge explained to Erwin (who was helping out at the time) how it was always the way. ‘The most able are the least willing. That's how they get rich.' She explained how that made them little people, pathetic, like insects, scurrying around for a few crumbs, pushing others aside and attracting a world of bad karma.

Madge put down her cup of soup and walked towards the group. She stopped short, fixed the man with the glasses and said, ‘Mr Jose?'

‘Mrs Hergert,' he replied, smiling, just as much to those around him.

‘This may not be the best time,' she continued, ‘but I'd like to discuss your account.'

‘My account?' He wasn't sure if she was joking.

‘Yes. You never paid it.'

His expression changed. ‘How many years ago was that?'

‘Nonetheless.'

‘Madge, isn't it?'

‘Yes.'

‘You can't let it go for this long – '

‘Uh uh,' she said, waving a finger. ‘
You
let it go.'

‘I assumed …'

‘I'd forgotten? No. I'll look up the amount and place the invoice in the post.'

‘No.'

‘Mr Jose, I'm a widow, and I have very little money. I'm sure these other parents would understand.'

One of the parents looked at him, smiled, and patted his shoulder. ‘Go on, Pete, pay up.'

‘It's not the point.'

Then they all had a go at him. ‘Go on, you cheap bastard, didn't you hear, she's a widow?'

Jose looked at her. ‘If it will make you happy, send me the bill.'

A small round of applause broke out. The players thought it was for them and looked back. Madge refused to thank or even acknowledge Jose. As everyone watched she returned to her bench, and soup. Erwin noticed how the members of the group were laughing at her, pulling faces and blowing silent raspberries. Meanwhile, he'd let the ball slip past the centre line. He turned and watched an opposition player racing it towards the goal. Madge stood up and shouted at him, ‘Why are you standing there? Go.'

A few days later Erwin was walking down Lange Street, Nuriootpa, looking for number seventeen.

‘It's a bungalow, painted white all over,' the girl in his geography class had told him.

So here he was, in his lunch break, when he should've been practising Chopin – walking through puddles of rotten leaves that stuck to his school shoes, watching rainbow lorikeets suck nectar from gum flowers, turning up the collar of his green blazer against the cold, watching for pedestrians or people in cars who might recognise him and tell his mother.

He stopped in his tracks. I should turn back, he thought. She'll find out. She always finds out, and then …

He started walking again. He was just too curious. There was nothing worse than not knowing – what his brother was like, if his father's girlfriend was pretty or plain, smart or dumb. Certainly less manic than his own mother. And if they didn't want to know him, so what?

‘Go on Thursday,' the girl had told him. ‘It's his day off.'

Erwin stopped in front of the house and stared down the overgrown garden path. He could hear his mother's voice.
Some things can't be forgiven. Why did you go? Why? I ask so little …

Again, he started walking. He stood on the front porch and lifted his head to knock on the flyscreen door.

No more lessons, Erwin. Go and get yourself a job.

He knocked. There was shuffling from the kitchen at the far end of the house, but no reply. Then he heard a male voice talking in a slow, mechanical drone. ‘My name is Basedow and I am from the German region of South Australia. I am writing to you to protest the arrest of Pastor Niemöller last week. The Pastor is a guiding light to Protestants in Australia.'

‘He's not going to read your letter,' a woman's voice piped up.

‘Why not?'

‘He has people to do that.'

‘When they see it's from Australia, don't you think they'll pass it on?'

‘No.'

Erwin put his face to the flywire and called down the hallway. ‘Hello.'

‘He probably values outside opinion,' the man continued.

‘Coming,' the woman called, as a chair shifted and she quietened to reply to the man. ‘Hitler hasn't heard of the Barossa Valley.'

‘Rubbish.'

‘Fred,' she scolded, appearing in the hallway, looking towards the front door. ‘Who is it?' she asked, squinting.

‘Erwin,' he replied, starting to make her out.

‘Erwin who?'

‘Hergert.'

‘No …'

‘The boy?' the man asked.

‘Yes,' she replied, walking slowly down the hallway. She unlatched the door and opened it. ‘I never thought I'd see the day,' she said.

Erwin was unsure what to do, or say. ‘I'm Jo's son,' he managed.

‘I know who you are,' she replied. ‘It's just I assumed you'd been … warned off.'

‘I was.'

‘Yeah, that's what Jo reckoned. Gee, you look like him. Come in.'

She took him to the kitchen and introduced him to Fred, the letter-writer. ‘My husband,' she explained.

Fred stood up and Erwin shook his hand. ‘I didn't know,' Erwin said, lifting his hands in the air, confused. ‘I suppose that's why I'm here.'

‘And I'm glad you are,' the woman said, taking him around the shoulder and squeezing tightly. ‘It's a very brave thing to do, considering.'

‘My mum?'

‘Jo told me everything.'

‘The shed?'

‘The lot.' She pulled out a chair and offered it to him. ‘My name's Shirley. Declan will be home soon.'

Erwin smiled. ‘Good … I gotta get back to school.'

‘Bugger school,' she said. ‘Don't you want to meet your brother?'

Shirley made coffee and they talked – about school and God's Hill Road, Dodge trucks and piano lessons. She sat in front of him, holding his hands in hers, as Fred continued writing his letter to the accompaniment of a grandfather clock. He searched her face for clues, for something his father had seen – brown, receptive eyes, soft skin, a figure that hadn't buckled under the weight of gravity, a soothing voice and the ability to stop and listen, and hear, and say things like, ‘Why would she say a thing like that?'

Here was the mother he hadn't had, but might've, if his father had chosen differently. Here was a mother that wouldn't make him a great pianist but might have made him happy, or happier. Here was the proof that life was random and unpredictable, the result of chemistry, or people put together and forced to make the best of it. Here was the source of all regrets, and none, something to be bitter about and thankful for. Here was a parallel life. At last he understood why his mum had tried to stop him coming.

‘Jo was always talking about you,' Shirley said.

‘What did he say?'

‘He said you were a good looker. How many girlfriends you got?'

He frowned. ‘Mum wouldn't allow that.'

‘Yes … and he said you were a wonderful pianist. I've heard others say that too.'

‘Who?'

‘It's a small town, Erwin. How about you play something for us?' She indicated a piano sitting against the kitchen wall. It was covered in folded linen and crockery and she got up and moved it and opened the lid. ‘Come on,' she said, arranging a chair.

Erwin sat down and played a few bars of Liszt's
Liebesträum
.

‘Amazing,' she marvelled, as he tried to remember the melody. Then he stopped and looked at her and asked, ‘You and Dad?'

She moved closer and patted him on the knee. ‘Your dad was a wonderful man,' she explained. ‘It was just … the ­circumstances.'

At last he understood. She wasn't a tramp at all. She was someone who had held Jo and smelt his breath; who had laughed at his unfunny jokes and counted the number of hairs protruding from his nose; who had cut his fingernails and screamed at him and even produced a child to explore and solidify their love.

He
was the one who'd been lied to.
He
was the one who'd been led to understand that his dad was in the shed because he'd been so heartless, so loveless. But now, as he thought back, he could remember Jo trying to give his side of the story. He could remember his father saying things like, ‘I'm a pretty decent fella, Shot-a-tee. I'm hard working and I've never told a lie. Never.'

Which, he realised now, was probably true.

Now he knew why he'd come: to separate fact from fiction, his mother's stories versus the things he'd always suspected.

‘I would've contacted you,' Shirley explained, ‘but Jo said there was no use. Your mother, he said, had …' She bowed her head. ‘And then when he got sick, and I couldn't see him, I'd often drive past your place, but I never went in. I couldn't. Could you imagine?'

Erwin smiled. ‘No.'

‘She's got a hold on you.'

‘Perhaps.'

‘You be careful, Erwin, you make your own decisions. You visiting is a good start. You gonna come again?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good.'

Fred was oblivious to the whole drama. ‘We believe the Confessional Church is the great hope for German Protestants,' he read. ‘We understand Pastor Niemöller disagrees with you on the Jewish question.'

In the distance, the school bell rang out to signal the end of lunch. ‘I've gotta get back,' Erwin explained.

Shirley stopped him with her hand on his. ‘He'll be here any minute.'

Erwin looked around. ‘Dad used to come here?'

‘All the time. Most nights he ate tea right where Fred's sitting. Next to Declan.'

‘They were …?'

She paused. ‘The best of mates. He took him to soccer, and tennis. And Declan worked in the shop. The old bitch, sorry, your mum, didn't know that. Then Jo got him his job at the Co-op. Pity he couldn't have done that for you.'

‘Mum wouldn't have it. Scared I'd crush a finger.'

‘That's a shame. But that's what he told me too – that she'd smothered you.' She slowed to smile at him. ‘He wanted to be closer to you … but she drove him away.'